ISRAEL TRUTH TIMES

A blog dedicated to investigating events as they occur in Judea and Samaria, in Israel and in the world, and as they relate to global powers and/or to the Israeli government, public figures, etc. It is dedicated to uncovering the truth behind the headlines; and in so doing, it strives to do its part in saving Judea and Samaria, and by extension, Israel and the Jewish People, from utter destruction at the hands of its many external and internal enemies.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

11 bNissanI have been searching the internet for the prayer to say upon eating bread on Pessah, and I found it by Googling "zachor Michlalah movies." There you can see/hear the late Reb Yonah Emanuel who was a teenage inmate in Bergen-Belsen during the Passover of 1944 when the prayer over bread was recited. He reads the entire prayer (it is not a bracha) over bread and describes Pessah in that death camp in this 3 minute segment of a longer DVD. The reason for my search: The recent controversy over selling hametz in the public square during Passover in Israel. I translated the prayer for bread during Passover into English at the end of this posting.

The controversy and court decision (by a national religious judge!) that permits selling bread in Israel during Passover reminded me of two Seder meals sixty-something years ago.

Passover 1943, Konin Concentration Camp

Before describing Pessah of 1943 in the Konin concentration camp in Poland, Rabbi Yehoshua Aronson gives us, in his memoirs, this startling description of a new arrival, one Dr. Hans Knopf.

"In the summer of 1942 a limousine came into camp. Several SS officers stepped out, followed by a serious and grandly dressed old Jewish man. The chauffeur unloaded six leather suitcases, each bearing a label with its owner's name. As we observed this impeccably dressed Jewish gentleman with his six expensive leather suitcases in a Jewish slave-labor camp, we went into a fever of curiosity. We strained to observe this heartening phenomenon that burst into our benighted camp."

"He was given a room that, as a German patriot, he decorated with photographs of himself on horseback and medals from his glittering military past as an officer in World War I. Sometimes he would dandify himself by putting on his officer's uniform. Knopf treated the Jews with condescension and estrangement, ashamed to come into contact with fellow Jews."

Slowly, however, he began to realize the connection between the Jews' fate and his own. The memoir describes the transformation wrought in this assimilated Jew, for by the time Passover rolled around in the spring of 1943, Dr. Knopf was deeply involved in seder preparations. "The German-Jewish doctor of all people insisted we hold the seder despite our fatigue and the late hour." Perhaps it was contact with deeply rooted scholars such as Rabbi Aronson, that triggered this metamorphosis. "When he discovered that I was a rabbi, Knopf never stopped pestering me; he would often pour out his heart to me. He told me how devoted he had been, how he had served and fought for the German homeland. As I observed this disillusioned Jew, I became heartsick." Rabbi Aronson survived to write his memoirs and to become the beloved chief rabbi of Petah Tikva, Many inmates came to Rabbi Aronson with the dilemma: to eat hametz or not? Realizing that most were too weak to last a week without bread, Rabbi Aronson responded with guidelines. Hametz was to be eaten on Pessah, but in order to minimize the transgression involved he ruled that each bite should be less than kzayis, "the volume of an olive" and the bites should be spaced at long intervals. Esther Farbstein points out that the desire to ask halachic questions was a form of spiritual resistance and heroism for two reasons. It reflected a cherishing of mitzvot as a raison d'etre which kept many Jews going and it was a form of defiance, their way to assert freedom in a slave-labor camp. Back to our dandified Dr. Knopf who when he had arrived kept the other Jews at arms' length. Here he was, ten months later deeply involved in preparations for the seder. His turnabout is poignantly expressed in one of the most moving descriptions in the Aronson memoir. Where would they find the means to bake the matza? Knopf had a stove in his clinic/room. He risked his life and insisted they bake the little bit of dough that they sequestered in his very room. They were not found out, and held a seder that year, although the doctor did not survive in the long run. However Rabbi Aronson did survive. He went on to become the beloved chief rabbi of Petah Tikva, and to write his memoir immortalizing Dr. Hans Knopf who risked all to bake matza.

Passover Bergen-Belsen, 1944

By 1944 there was no question that Jews must eat hametz to stay alive. Rabbi Avraham Levisson from Holland dealt with this issue in Bergen-Belsen. Esther Farbstein points out that he had been active from the start of the war in finding solutions to tragic dilemmas as the Dutch Jews were concentrated in Westerbork, Holland from 1939 onwards ( he encouraged inmates to give their wives a conditional get, lest they become agunas). Beginning in 1942 each Tuesday a selection was made of Jews who were transported by train to death camps such as Auschwitz and elsewhere. "Rabbi Levisson was known to the inmates as 'Rabbi Simcha' ('Rabbi Happiness') because of his warm, positive attitude toward them. He organized extensive religious activity. In 1943 he was deported via Westerbork to Bergen-Belsen." In 1944 Rabbi Levisson and his father, along with the Chief Rabbi of Rotterdam Rav A.B. Davids and a number of Jews surreptitiously gathered in one barrack to quietly hold a seder. Man cannot live on potatoes alone. The Dutch rabbis, seeing the Jews could not survive without eating bread on Pessah, composed a prayer to recite upon eating hametz during Passover.You can see/hear Yonah Emanuel, one of those present in the camp, read this prayer and explain the circumstances in a segment from the DVD „V'Hi She-Amda" about Pesach during the Holocaust, produced by Zachor After the prayer was composed, other inmates wanted copies. Since there were no Xerox machines, typewriters, or carbon paper in the camp, Yonah's older brother Elhanan Emanuel, hy"d, copied it again and again by hand in the concentration camp after his twelve-hour shifts of slave labor. Rabbi Levisson himself gave the few potatoes he saved for Passover to his own father, who was even weaker than he was. This week I spoke with Rabbi Levisson's daughter, who now lives in a religious neighborhood of Ashdod, to get the background details behind the prayer. She had been hidden as a baby with a Christian family in Holland. She explains that her father died of exhaustion on April 25,1945, on a train shortly before the train was liberated by the Soviets. Her family and many others recite the prayer over hametz on Passover at the seder each year, immortalizing the spiritual heroism that it represents. For the Hebrew version see the aron-hasfarim.co.il website.

To be said with utmost concentration before eating hametz on Pessah:Master of the Universe,It is manifest and known to You we want to fulfill Your commandment that we celebrate the holiday of Passover by eating matza and abstaining from hametz. But to our great sorrow our servitude prevents us from fulfilling these precepts.We are not masters of our own fate and our lives are in danger.Therefore we are ready and willing to keep the mitzva: „So that you shall live by them" [v'chai bahem, Lev. 18:5] and not die because of keeping the mitzvot. Therefore we are commanded to do what we must in order to remain alive; thus by eating hametz we will be keeping Your other precept, „Be ever so careful with your life." [Deut. 4:9] We pray that You keep us alive and sustain usso that we merit to survive to fulfill Your commandments wholeheartedly in the future. Amen

This week every radio talk show in Israel and every newpaper discussed the "hametz" law. I was surprised no one made a point that I often make when there is a charge of religious coercion: In Switzerland it is against the law to wash your car or hang laundry on Sunday. You get fined! But how come no one calls that 'religious coercion" ?

FOR those who read Hebrew, you can read the entire trial decision permitting the sale of hametz on the internet. The judge (national religious Jew, daughter of Prof. Bar-Asher who won the Israel prize for linguistics) pinned her decision on the interpretation of the word „farhesia" - what is public versus private space.

Visitors on ISRAEL TRUTH TIMES

LIVE CHAT/ BULLETIN BOARD

I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee...ואברכה מברכיך ומקללך אאר ונברכו בך כל משפחת האדמה

Am Yisrael wants the Temple rebuilt!

A survey conducted by the Panels Insitute revealed that 64 % of the Israeli public , and half of secular Israelis, want the Temple rebuilt. 97% of respondents know that the Temple was destroyed on Tisha B'Av ( Ninth of Av).

The survey's second question queried the public’s desire to rebuild the Temple. Sixty-four percent responded favorably and 36 percent said no. Analysis of the answers revealed that not only hareidi-religious and other religious Jews want to rebuild the Temple, (100 percent and 97 percent respectively), but also the traditional public (91 percent) and many secular Jews (47 percent) do as well.

Just a reminder to our many enemies, specially 'you know who' (below ), from Isaiah the Prophet:

Isaiah 49:24-26

"Can prey be taken back from a strong one; can the righteous captive escape?

But thus said Hashem: Even the captive of the strong can be taken back, and the prey of the mighty can escape; I, Myself, will take up your cause, and I, MYSELF, WILL SAVE YOUR CHILDREN.

And I will feed your oppressors their own flesh, and as with sweet wine shall they become drunk; then all flesh shall know that I am Hashem, your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Israel."

Words of wisdom: what to do to save lives and preserve freedom of the Jewish People in Israel:

... Coming from a traditionally very passive and peaceful sector, United Torah Judaism:

"There was no reason for [the mother] to be in jail... Now we all understand that these things can be stopped by burning garbage and ripping out traffic lights”

MK Meir Porush, UTJ - about the riots in Jerusalem

A word of wisdom...coming from what was once the Land of the Free...

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds."Samuel Adams, American Revolutionary

Very appropriate quote , although more than a century old.

"There are laws to protect the freedom of the press's speech,

but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press."

--Mark Twain

... And more truths about truth:

"A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.

To make them love it is the task assigned, in present-day totalitarian states, to ministries of propaganda, newspaper editors and schoolteachers.... The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been accomplished, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing.

Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth."

"When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic."Dresden James.

We live in times of unprecedented dangers, therefore,

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."Edmund Burke

"Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing, because he could only do a little."

Edmund Burke

PICTORIAL REVIEW OF WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN GUSH KATIF

Here below, you will be able to see for yourselves what REALLY happened during the Gush Katif expulsion; how the GOOD JEWS of ISRAEL were BETRAYED by their so-called leaders.

Link provided by Barry Chamish.

Now you understand whom we are dealing with in this country: TRAITORS. They pretend to have the nation's best interests at heart, but this is all a mirage, a lie; either they are self-serving, or THEY WORK FOR THE ENEMY, and they cannot be trusted.

Only TRUE and FAITHFUL LEADERSHIP will get us out of this morass; AND G-D'S INFINITE MERCY, B"H.

We are waiting for Mashiach to come and rescue us; meanwhile, we do what we can to HELP THE GEULAH.

Gush Katif Betrayal, "MERAGLIM 1"

Gush Katif Betrayal, "MERAGLIM 2"

Gush Katif Betrayal, "MERAGLIM 3"

Gush Katif Betrayal, "MERAGLIM 4"

QUOTES BY THE ENEMY, AND ABOUT THE ENEMY'S TACTICS

Here below are quotes related to the enemy's nature, tactics and philosophy.

Always remember: LEARN FROM YOUR ENEMY, EMULATE HIM, but for the FORCES OF GOOD!

Whenever he does A, do A, in reverse.

He does B, do B, in reverse.

We might not have his financial resources or capabilities, but we have a much greater ally: HASHEM.

Remember David and Goliath. We are David, and with God's help, we can defeat Goliath. All we have to do is UNMASK THE EVIL GIANT, UNMASK HIS TACTICS, UNDERSTAND HIS DECEPTIONS, AND EXPOSE THEM TO THE BRIGHT LIGHT OF DAY.

AND PRAY TO GOD FOR HELP.

AND ALWAYS, ONLY STRIVE TO DO GOOD,

SO THAT WE CAN BE A FORCE OF GOOD AGAINST THESE MESSENGERS OF DARKNESS.

"PROPAGANDA CANNOT TAKE TIME OFF"

"Propaganda cannot take time off"

... one of the key rules ofmodern disinformation, which is that the required message must be repeated very frequently if it is to pass...

THE STATE IS THE ENEMY!

"You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the ... public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security.

This is the political logic which remains behind all the massacres and the bombings which remain unpunished, because the state cannot convict itself or declare itself responsible for what happened."

OBAMA THE MUSLIM

THE DARK SIDE OF THE U.S.A.: AS IN SERBIA, SO IN YESHA...

... in 1998, the US State Department and intelligence agencies decided to use the Kosovo Liberation Army to get rid of Slobodan Miloševic. "The US agenda was clear. When the time was right they were going to use the KLA to provide the solution to the political problem" – the "problem" being, as Marshall explains earlier, Miloševic’s continued political survival. This meant supporting the KLA’s terrorist secessionism, and later fighting a war against Yugoslavia on its side. Marshall quotes Mark Kirk, a US naval intelligence officer, saying that, "Eventually we opened up a huge operation against Miloševic, both secret and open." The secret part of the operation involved not only things like stuffing the various observer missions which were sent into Kosovo with officers from the British and American intelligence services, but also – crucially – giving military, technical, financial, logistical and political support to the KLA, which, as Marshall himself admits, "smuggled drugs, ran prostitution rackets and murdered civilians.""Bags of money had been brought in for years....Organisations controlled by George Soros also played a crucial role, as they were later to do, in 2003–4, in Georgia....The so-called "democrats" were, in reality, nothing but foreign agents."

Tim Marshall, Sky TV

MAKE SURE TO WATCH THE PPS"Will there soon be an anti-Jewish genocide in Israel?"

Land of Israel Crusader

I am a Jew living in the Land of Judea (Eretz Yehuda), which was given to us, the Jewish people, by G-D Himself. I love this place very much; I will do my best to develop it, cherish it, protect it, turn it into the paradise it was always meant to be - and defend it against any and all enemies of Am Yisrael.